Divided Heart
by Erase Him in the White Silk
Summary: Snippets of Laura that I wrote in the dark after reading her diary.
1. Of My Darker Self

For my dad, who after death left me signs of Laura, and L. who shared with me her thoughts and pens.

* * *

Looking out the window, the one he uses, the wind runs over my face and hair. I know this wind is from the woods. I can feel that it's swept over the dirt floor, through the leaves and branches before coming to me.

As it touches me, dusts over my body, I almost hear it saying, "BOB's coming soon. BOB's coming for his Laura Palmer." It's moving with his instructions over me. Making me feel dirty. Making me remember that it's his coldness I feel on my skin. The rough, liquid cool of denim.

At night I sometimes think I hear the wind calling out to me, asking me to come back to the woods. Sometimes it's low and roaring, like the start of thunder. Its echos making sure I can't sleep. Like BOB. When it gets that way I try to drown it out with music, with the fan, even if my room is already cold. Anything.

I wonder if mom and dad hear it, if all of Twin Peaks hears it but it's like white noise to them...?

'The woods are you.'

You are the woods.

O

BOB was inside me tonight. In my head. He let me remember. He likes how afraid it makes me. How good it tastes.

When this happens my mouth stretches. Layers peeling back to create a grin that covers what I really feel. The smile is there because he makes it.

This being takes me. Pulls me elsewhere, somewhere I don't know. Sometimes it's the woods.

Away from others, he likes to come outside and cut deep. I think he's cutting even deeper now because he knows about the baby.

When inside me he calls to the woods. Working my fingers, my bones.  
How can I live?

There is no way out.

O

The leaves are gone from the trees. Everything is bare, though the woods are still dark.

I like it when the leaves fall, but it scares me when I hear his movements in them when the darkness blinds me.

I hear him walking. Always following. I pretend I don't know.

When the woods are empty like this I think of how much I'll miss them. I think of how they'll be in winter, if I'm here, and how lonely they'll be.

I wonder, as I walk the passages I know, will they find me dead here? In this spot will I soon lay covered until someone happens to find me? My unseeing eyes last focused on the man who killed me.

I see them too clearly now.

O

In a dream my mother falls. Quickly raising and sinking. Like rewinding and fast-forwarding the same sequence on a tape. Over and over. Again and again.

I want to cry at first. I want to reach out and help her, but I can't. Something's forcing me not to.

In this cycle she starts to bleed, falling more roughly and in a fury. She can't stop. Her knees and hands red from blood. I scream for BOB to stop making this happen, but all he does is laugh. That laugh where he rolls his eyes to the back of his head and sounds like the black dog he is.

My mother is falling and there is a thing laughing. Laughing at his own jokes because no one else will.

Hours until I wake up.

O

One of my Meals on Wheels customers was just outside my house. She was walking in the dark on the sidewalk that leads to me.

Standing beside a table in the shadows, I happened to look out and saw movement that in flashes revealed her grandson's white mask. He was skipping, sort of hopping down the street. She was trailing slowly behind, the moon shining on her skin and hair.

The boy seemed happy, like he was celebrating something.

I didn't think she even felt like leaving the house...

O

The ground is white. My feet pass through sand, embers. The sky is as colorless as the terrain. There are no trees, save for the 12 scorched black in a circle, ominous against their backing. Wind skites ash in pools around my ankles, in the air. There is no sound.

I see and hear a blonde man in a suit. He's ranting, his jagged teeth visible. He is beautiful.  
I go to him. He quickly turns from me to the trees, eyes squinted.

The wind has picked up, sending what looks like cremated remains in the air. Whatever it is, it's as dense as fog. He fastens his jacket as I stare. I can hardly see him now.

He looks back to me, takes a few steps forward to shield the wind. He leans in, points toward the trees and says something I cannot understand. Jumbled, backwards, like the others. Finally I realize he's telling me his name is Phillip.

Frustrated, he takes hold of my arm and leads me through the ash swirling around us, thickest over our heads.

At the circle of trees he stops. He looks downwards, nodding for me to do the same. I see a pit lined in white. Its insides black as the surrounding trees. Reflected on the surface of this black is red. The red of the curtains I've seen before in dreams.

Something comes over me, sadness, pain, fear, sickness. Makes me put my fingers over his jaw, over his face, clawing; placing my fingers on the smoothness behind his ears.

He pulls away and blood is on his lip, in the lines of teeth. In the lines of mine.

"Uoy wonk I," he says, shakily.

I hear a strange sound after he's said this, like a wild animal. I don't know where it is. When he speaks I forget.

"BOB." His face changes, shifts into a grin. "Derutcip I woh ton si riah ruoy."

He circles me. "Tnereffid er'ouy, arauL, tnereffid er'uoY."

"How is this. Is this me?" I ask him, wondering as I say them where the words come from.

"Uoy er'ouy."

"Is he me?"

"Ohw?"

"BOB!"

"UoY eb ot stnaw eh."

"I know. How do you?"

"Sgniteem."

I slouch down in pain, my wrists and fingers bent strangely. "Is it real or did I want it so much I made it?"

"T'nddid uoY."

"What am I going to do?"

"Wonk uoy."

"I know?"

"Wonk uoy."

* * *

~O~


	2. Seeing Nothing

~O~

When Donna was here earlier she asked me about her mother, what I would do if anything ever happened to her. If she died.

Would I stay by her side all night and not care if she cried. Would I know, without words, what she wanted. Were we that close?

I told her that I would always be there for her, and would do what I could to help, even though I knew nothing would ever make the pain go away.

She looked at me kind of funny, like she felt stupid for asking what she had, but then she took my hand and squeezed it.

With her hand still in mine, she sat upright and looked in my eyes, her gaze unsteady, left to right and back, as if trying to read what I was feeling by taking in every detail of me that she could.

She told me she loved me and that nothing would happen. Not now.

I don't know why she was worried about her mother, but I don't mind not knowing because sometimes I have thoughts like that too, for no reason.

What bothers me is that I knew I was lying when I told her I would always be there for her. 

O

There was a moment where I saw my blood. It was quick, the vision of what he allowed. I saw it collected in a corner. All that had been taken from me over the years. The lights were flashing, making it where I couldn't see all that was happening.

BOB was laughing in the dark and I was blind to him, to the others moving around me. I know there were more, I saw a girl from the back with dark hair circling me, but she was gone with the light. BOB's laughter was all I could hear ringing in my ears besides my heartbeat.

He took my hand and began to twirl me around, violently. I tried to make him stop, but he was too strong. Another man, one I have seen before with blackened thumbs came forward and laughed at the sight of me. He then began to sing as he has before, to mock me. Who is he? Who is BOB? Why does he want to continue doing this to me?

I wanted out. I wanted out of that dream so badly, if that's what it was; a dream. For some reason I couldn't seem to wake myself up as I have so often before.

I was so afraid. I hated myself for feeling that way, I didn't want BOB to know. There was nothing I could do, though. It's like he can sense my every thought, every feeling, and no matter what I do I cannot completely banish my fear.

O

In this dress of silk I feel the way I love to feel.

In the mirror the girl looking back does not look like me, but another. A girl from the dark.

It's discomforting because I don't feel like this girl is me... But, at the same time, I like knowing that I'm looking at a different person who moves in the glass.

Why should I even see in myself the old Laura? She doesn't live on the outer rim under skin. She's far below the surface, sleeping quietly. Nestled deep in a bed made up of the warm, unsoiled rags of her youth. Coiled and dreaming.

This Laura, however, the present, is awake and ready to take on the night and the boys who live under its black skies.

In lust they need me and in the end I need them. Not to live or breathe but, in a way, feed.

O

There's a note that needs to be written. I see it already finished in my head, but as time passes the words elude me, fall from their steady, neat rows to the abyss beneath, never to be seen again.

Somewhere, in some time, I think this note is already finished and on my table, folded and neat. Maybe if I think long and hard enough I will make that happen.

All that I need to write is a lie to my mother, but it's getting harder to sound like the person I should be.

O

Earlier, during a lull at the perfume counter, I was able to spend time watching the few drifting customers make their way past my department.

After a while I saw the little girl whose cat I killed, Danielle, and her mother among the others walking toward Men's Fashion. They were profiles before their backs turned.

Danielle didn't see me. As she walked away I started thinking, starting feeling badly about what I had planned to do after work.

That little girl was once me.

~O~


	3. The Fingerprints of Those

~O~

I had to spend an hour or so with Donna and her Neanderthal boyfriend, Mike Nielsen, tonight. It's safe to say that I cannot stand him.

I know Bobby's not much better, but he's for me, not Donna. I had a hand in making Bobby what he is, but Mike didn't require any help. No slap to the back of the head was necessary when it came to forcing him to ascend the first step.

Donna doesn't deserve to be treated this way. What has she done other than be herself, only to daily be faced with threats and anger.

I've told her how I feel about Mike, but she laughs it off like it's a joke or something. Sort of like, I have bad taste so who am I to speak...

It's true, I like bad boys, but Mike isn't the kind of bad I like. He's just obnoxious. Thinks he owns Donna.

I wish she would break up with him.

I've seen how James and Donna look at each other. Even if they don't fully know it yet, I can tell there's something between them.

If only there were a way all three of us could easily step out of this mess by turning another page and leaving the past behind, out of sight, so that we could begin anew.

For now I will have to content myself with the knowledge that James and Donna will have each other when I am gone.

O

In the red light of our room they watched my show with Ronette, then the one later with Teresa.

The sex was so good. So like fire inside me, flooding me in a torrent. The way water and flames look so alike when you stare... that is how they merged in me.

Tonight, in that way, it was almost like I could feel what the others were feeling as well. Sense their thoughts. And Ronette and Teresa's were just the kind I like. They were having as much fun as I was.

When we're together like that fear and regret have no room. All the space has been taken up by good feelings. That's why I always look forward to our visits.

Ronette and I hadn't seen Teresa for quite some time, so it was kind of nice to catch up after everything cooled down and the boys packed up for home.

I like Teresa. She makes me laugh and feel comfortable. When I'm with her and Ronette, in those hotel rooms, I almost forget all the bad things I have to come home to, in Twin Peaks. All the memories of what I've done and had done to me.

It almost seems normal, like we're all just friends. Girls our age. Only instead of trading make-up tips and gossip we discuss the men and the strange and wonderful feelings of a few hours before. Sometimes other things too...

All that really matters is that I don't feel so alone when I'm with them.

O

I was in the room again in a dream.

Sitting in the same chair I looked towards the sound of music filtering past curtains, entering the room I was in from another. I was alone, for once. In the dark. Alone in a new way, like I would never return to people again and would always be left there, staring out. Waiting.

But someone was playing music, someone, or something, was near. Slowly I moved, parting the curtains, looking out to no one. I stepped back one step and closed the curtains again before opening them on a face. A man stared back at me, and all I could do was stare in return. Not even a scream would leave me.

Closing the curtains finally I ran, out of the room, out of the light, to another hall. On the other side of the red drapes there was a new light and in it I almost felt safe.

The little man in a red suit appeared in front of me. He stared, blinking several times.

"Dnoura nrut!"

Scared, I did as he asked and re-entered the room I'd just left in backwards steps. On the floor was a blonde girl. She was on her knees, sobbing in a pool of blood. Her sobs were as distorted as the laughter to her side, sounding evil almost. She acted as though she could not see me, or at least pretended not to. She began to slowly crawl, and I felt myself looking down on her from a higher altitude. A strange sort of dizzy feeling, then it was over and I was back and there was nothing only the room.

When I woke up and could see in the morning light, I found blood under my nails.

O

Maddy used to tell me she had dreams of me in the woods.

I wonder if she saw the things that were happening, if she knew but didn't care enough to help? Or did she live with something similar and didn't know how to talk about it...?

I've wondered for so long, am I his only victim or did he have others before me?

As much as BOB has been in my life I've always felt as though there could be no one else, no possible way that there is time enough for him to torment another, but now in reflection of all I've known, I have only this to say: what is there to stop him? BOB doesn't follow any rules that I know of.

I hope Maddy only saw me walking the woods, as I do sometimes in waking hours.

I wish that I could know what Maddy saw.

O

I remember when I used to swim in the waters around the docks and in the forest creeks...

Sometimes Dad and I used to walk through the woods, long and far. So far the trees seemed to grow closer and closer, turning away the light from above. There would be only beams, the strongest fighting to be seen.

It was strange, going into the woods with him. It was like both of us wanted to prove something by going that far. To stare down something inside both of us that we feared.

~O~


	4. To The Voices In The Leaves

~O~

Waking up today I feel as though I've shattered a protective shell around me. That it's burst open and wounded me in the process. I still feel it in my eyes.

I'm trying to stay awake now, but it's hard driving.

I'm seeing things as if in a dream. Little moments snap back, waking me from my trance. And it hurts. It pains me because I feel like I'm supposed to be entering another place, somewhere I belong in sleep.

But I can't. I won't let myself.

One of the Sheriff's deputies is behind me.

Trying to drive normally, but I keep panicking as I see the car in the mirror. All I need is for him to see the state I'm in. I think he would be able to tell right away that something's up.

I rub my eyes, and when I am able to see again the deputy's car is passing me. It's Hawk, the guy who pulled me over before for speeding. He waves as he passes, apparently not noticing a thing.

O

I miss Donna. I'm starting to dream of her because I miss her so badly.

I know, with the way things are now, the only way I can see Donna, be with her the way I used to, is in dreams.

Even though we're in the same classes it's like I see through her at school.

Something prevents me from caring about the little things. The facts from her nights with Mike and at home. They're so foreign to me and unreal, and that makes her every bit as unreal.

Yet, though I sometimes despise her ignorance, I don't want to open her eyes the way mine have been opened. To make scars outside not matching those within.

I don't think I can ever feel for Donna the way I did before. Before remembering BOB, before being ruined.

O

Bobby was a no-show tonight. He might have forgotten our little play-date (or should I say snow-date?) but I doubt it. I imagine he's with Leo's girl now, laughing it up behind the unknowing husband's back.

That's fine. It's not like I need him to have a good time. I have plenty of friends who can help me in that department. There's a few with me now; round and promising a night without dreams...

I shouldn't let myself miss certain aspects of Bobby's personality anyway. That's a mistake I need to avoid. A strength I have to build in myself.

I wish I couldn't smell him, though. The cigarettes, the sweat. Even when he's not been near me. It just breezes by, a phantom memory...

James gave me one of his poems after school today. It was sweet of him, but when I first read it I had to cover my mouth to keep from laughing. It was so childish! He's shy about letting other people read his work and seemed so proud of his verse... If it had been Bobby I probably would have said something, something that would have hurt, but it's different with James. He's sensitive and already so sad. And he doesn't really know the Laura that Bobby does.

I'll keep the poem. Save it back with other little things people have given me over the years. Nothing really important, just pieces of paper kept to preserve the memories that will die with me.

Dad's just put a record on. It's trailing up the stairs. Benny Goodman. I can hear Dad calling me now, wanting me to dance. _Come on, Laura!_ I'll humor him, and Mom too, if she's in the living room. She always laughs like she's never seen it all before. Maybe I'll make them dance for me this time.

O

There is a man I do not know asleep at my feet. I am leaving him in the night. Another from the Roadhouse.

As I slip outside and into the cool air I am confused by the fear quickly placed inside me, slipped into my heart like a note on paper.

I'm on the road and something is making me want to run, but to where and why? I feel as if eyes are on me, those not of BOB, but another who sends chills down my spine. In these sparks I want to disappear, to hide.

If only a door to a haven in the woods would open. A cellar under roots, made all of wood. Out of sight and mind. Unknown by the darkness, by BOB.

But there is no escape. No room in which I can hide to evade the world.

O

My own screams wake me in the middle of the night. Donna's close, up in my face, wanting to take in all that I can translate from my nightmare. But it was a nightmare she cannot know. Even repeating it to myself feels foolish, let alone saying it aloud to Donna, who has no idea that such nightmares are often a reality for her friend.

I lie, make up some cliche, a movie dream, and she wraps her arms around me. Her voice is soft and calm and leaving in a whisper.

"They can't get us. Nothing can while we're together," she assures me. "Think of good things."

I try. I try to think of good things, but there are so few that make themselves known in moments like that.

Her heart is beating against my back, so I close my eyes and I concentrate on that instead. On the heart I feel inside this girl. Pretend the flesh between us yields so that ours are pulses that meet. In that one pulse she understands and knows my pain. The reasons behind my actions, and she forgives.

But thinking of this dream as reality only hurts me more because like everything else in my life I know it is a lie.

~O~


	5. So Still, Holding Death

~O~

When I saw Benjamin today he did something he hasn't for such a long time; he sang for me.

I was with Johnny in another room when Benjamin burst in. He told Johnny to study the pictures in his book by himself for a few minutes, while he had a talk with me.

By my hand he brought me into his office. He made his way to the fireplace, gently pulling me along. When he came to the stone outside fire he sat down, smiling up at me. He motioned that he wanted me to sit on his lap, so I did. He then wrapped his arms around me, and I could feel his breath on my neck as he started to sing in a whisper a song I knew as a child.

I can't remember the lyrics now, it's been so long since I've heard the song in whole before today, but I can remember a line, _'There are beasties in the garden who would never accept your pardon.'_ Why would he choose to sing that particular song to me? It was from some silly old movie about a cat. A cat who died and came back to life.

After he was finished he kissed my cheek, his hands pressing deeply into the skin around my stomach. He said he would see me later this week, right? _One Eyed Jack's._

"Of course," I said, pouring it on thick.

Benjamin tapped his nose and grinned. That was it, end of meeting. He slid me off his knee. Nothing else was said.

Johnny ran up to me when I came back to him. He'd colored a page from his coloring book and gave it to me. It was a bird made solid red.

O

Sometimes I borrow Donna's clothes to feel like her.

It doesn't really work, but I try. I think there's too much dark in me to accept the good from her.

I always end up tossing the clothes from my body, away in a corner near my bed. Better to have her feelings near and not taint them with my own.

I'd rather feel them reaching out to me, perhaps coloring my dreams. A protective web to keep the bad out.

O

I don't know where the room is I visit in dreams and out. The words spoken in it are so strange, altered to the point of almost being unrecognizable.

Without trying, I find that I speak as they do.

Where is the room and why am I often brought there to feel pain, to feel fear? To see those I know along with strangers inhabiting worn chairs in flickering light.

I wonder why it is that when I wake from this room I feel as though I'm still there and always will be. Like it's where a part of me belongs.

Always screaming in curtained halls.

O

The forest is of ash again. Fallen cinders.

Is it the same day or later. . .? The black, burnt trees have steam rising from their frayed lines of bark to the sky.

The man from before is here. Phillip with his wild eyes.

With his gaze locked on me, he tilts his head cautiously to his left, raising a finger. He stares for an eternity.

'Nidnats evila er'uoy rednow a s'ti"

I don't know what to say to that, so I simply return his stare. He moves, one step out to his side.  
Stop. Another step, then he sways, never breaking; fluid. His eyes on me. I feel strange, but not as though what is happening shouldn't be. I feel my body swaying gently, too. As if I've been standing too long.

Phillip exhales.

I slouch down, my shoulders lowering deeply. My insides suddenly feel like they are going to fall out, leave my body in a heap, but the pain does not show on my face to the outside.

".Eb attog sah ecalp siht pu 'ninrub"

His hands are in his pockets, his neck straining forward, revealing the tight skin, the veins. His head pulls back once, then he straightens, he stills.

A strange noise raises to the level of sirens. A quick, pulsing beeping sound travels in waves. It sort of reminds me of Johnny Horne's yells in the backyard, though sped up. Originating from somewhere over the hills, growing louder and louder as it comes closer, until deafening. Finally, to the point of madness, it dissolves. An audible landing in the circle of trees.

I realize in the silence my stomach suddenly doesn't hurt any longer. "Won't you leave?" I ask him. He contains a madness.

I hear him repeatedly whispering to himself as his gaze remains fixed on the pools of ash under our feet.

".Did ydaerla I" He turns to me, looking oddly serene.

"Then why are you here?"

".Ton m'I"

Something catches my attention from the side, a fallen leaf. I return only to discover that he has vanished, leaving a cloud of smoke to match those escaping the trees.

Alone in this waste I miss him.

O

All around in every space is ground, is dark, is trees.

I walk between the trees, touching their roughness, letting their bark dig into me. Letting it hurt.

The trees were keeping me from it before, the moon. It's low in the sky. A ring of film over its edges. Darker blue at the sides, with a sea of grey clouds filtering past.

The forest is laid out before me but I see nothing. Nothing but the trees that I already know. I remember as I walk that I dreamed of this area last night. Of its soft winding trails and streams.

In my dream I heard someone in the distance snap their fingers. When I turned I saw a woman I did not know. She was pale. Her wide, round face and eyes were framed by a curtain of long, dark hair that trailed down her back.

When she looked in my eyes she wasn't the same person. Then she was. When she turned back into herself she almost fell. Like the weight of a soul had been placed in her.

She stood under an arch of low limbs, her arms bent oddly to her sides. She looked at me and smiled.

_"Laura."_

I saw a flame burst out of the roots at her feet. She, however, did not notice, or failed to care, staggering forward on the balls of her feet.

Behind her was a small, dark haired boy.

"He has seen us."

"Who?" I asked, but I knew, somehow, that she was talking about BOB.

The little boy was gone when I looked again and slowly the woman faded. There was an outline left, a sort of shadow burned into the sky, of a man. I think it was that man from my dreams in the room.

I didn't want them to stay. I could feel their sadness and I knew the woman was dead.

She is gone, but the little boy is still walking.

Still looking for what might already be inside.

~O~


End file.
